"How do I love Thee?" by Madison K. Binkley *Bubbles*

How Do I love Thee?

By: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun of candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive freely for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love the with a love I seemed to loose
With my last saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--And if God chooses,
I shall love thee better after death.

Gunfire surrounded Nassari in a flurry of metal twang that rang loudly in her ears as she crouched low in the cold, grimy, alleyway that told of broken dreams. Tears poured down her face in salty, warm sheets, colliding with the pain of a gunshot wound. Her side throbbed deeply, sharp pistons of pain mingling with emotion, as more and more blood dripped menacingly from her body. Leon, who was ferociously fighting an officer Lychen-formerly known to humans as werewolves-, still hadn’t realized she was hurt, Fallen was wrapped up in fighting the gristly Lychen King, Lucifer. Howls of agony from the wolves reverberated through the starless night, though the moon still leaked out from the heavy cloud cover and beckoned the wolves to show their true face. The night welcomed vampires to hunt for blood, and shadows enticingly beckoned people to huddle fearfully within their grasp whilst creatures of the night brawled in their backyards, hidden by bushed and moonlight.

Thinking back, Nassari remembered the gruesome lessons that Nexis, the leader of their Coven, gave her when she joined the vampires’ side. Lychens and Vampires have been fighting for centuries, letting tradition and age-old hate fuel the battle, for reason was forgotten. The very first battle anyone, Lychen or Vampire, could recall entwined its roots deeply within the Trinity Church. Legend states that it might have been a fight of love, a Lychen falling in love with a Vampire, yet the young girl’s father sought revenge and tortured the wolf to insanity; beating him with lethal pure silver spikes. Vampires have since been known as Il Diavlo, or ‘The Evil’ in Italian. No memories would help her where she was now, though.

Nassari shoved her thoughts away and painfully lifted herself up. She felt the tingle of excitement run through her spine as Mother Moon peered down at her. She then pulled two fully loaded pistols from the holsters at her side and felt chrome bite her palm. A Lychen spied her fragile frame and charged at her; she noticed its sleek beauty, with sharp fangs and a poisonous bite.

“Goodnight mister monster,” Nassari snarled then ignored its beauty and shot the deadly creature with silver bullets. One, two, three…six times she shot her pistols and still it charged. She reloaded her guns hastily and shot a seventh time, which was always her lucky shot; with the squeal and whine of explosives, silver embedded itself within her monster’s forehead in a cacophony of yells and metallic blood.

Leon swerved from his valiant battle just in time to shout at her.

“Nassari! An underling is to your left!” His face twisted in fury when Nassari defiantly placed herself directly in danger without knowing it.

Nassari ducked quickly and shot blindly in a wide arch above her head, following the tooth-baring beast as it sailed harmlessly above her, whimpering loudly. It landed in the chaos of Leon’s fight with a loud crunch and the scattering of a million bullets of purple blood.

A loud snarling brought Nassari’s acute attention to Fallen; Lucifer swatted a mangled, hairy hand at her vampiric friend and she had to carefully fall back. The Silver Moon Vampire Coven was losing ground, battle drove hate and adrenaline into Nassari’s soul, driving the racking pain from her mind and body. She sprinted silently upon the loose alley brick to join Fallen and the now joining Leon. Lucifer was bigger, meaner, stronger, and more menacing than the others. Together they kicked, then impaled Lucifer’s body with silver bullets, and screamed with the chill of darkness; all to defeat the Lychen King.

Nassari looked from the rampant battle for a moment because she thought she spotted a smoking shadow cross above her and a huge, bloody paw swept past her defenses; assailing her so she flew backwards in a terror of shattered conscious and promises of Grim Reaper’s blade. Waves of nausea and shocks of pain ripped through her mind, body, and soul; she felt her breath came in sharp stitches in her side, a net of woven ebony hooded her milky brown eyes. Nassari vaguely sensed the sticky, inky heart blood being pumped from the gashes in her chest that Lucifer cut all the way through her leather trench coat and cat suite to make.

Leon fought an inner battle against drowsiness to seek revenge, love buzzed and tore his heart. Nassari was hurt and Lucifer would pay. He battled with the King of Hell himself. Fallen joined, her mindset seeing death of a long-time foe. Before long, the pair shot Lucifer’s hind and forelegs down. He crumpled and howled in pain, his purplish blood crept through the alley, great fountains defying science. Leon took the promised shots, driving the bullets into their foe’s forehead to poison him with silver.

“Leon, I’m going to go fight the last officer, catch you later!” Fallen’s blond and caramel hair bounced as she rushed into another battle, only to be knocked unconscious into the jagged wall, and no one was to ease the assail of Lychens. Leon charged to see if Nassari, his Beloved, was safe from death’s clutches.

A delusional silence surrounded Nassari, wild dreams and neurotic spasms of remembrance savaged her body. Cold as the shadows and feathery breezes of night itself, she screamed an cried. She screamed for things to come, things that have, and love that would be missed.

“Oh, God! I’m dieing!” She yelled into nothingness, shrill and deep, filled with fear of life beyond to rattle her Pagan gods’ minds; unaware of her Beloved’s arms holding her. Leon’s tears, tiny crystalline snowflakes, dropped to meet the cross about Nassari’s neck. He felt her human heart beating frantically and her magic pulsing to help her, without prevail. He choked violently on his own tears, his vampiric tears of glassy blue frost. Finally, he felt her lungs implode and the blood in her veins come to a sticky stop from her wound. Blood now covered him and drenched the alley to the very bowels of the fiery earth. His own heart ripped as hers was smashed by the edge of Grim Reaper’s sharpest blade, maddening Leon, he heard himself shout to the heavens, the stench of death was almost unbearable.

Time slowed sickeningly to a halt. Leon’s Beloved stared unseeingly with her clear brown eyes now dull, her short, choppy brown hair was dampened with her own blood. The last of the Lychens whimpered, and their fur was rustled by the wind whispering a silent obituary. Fallen crawled over because her knees buckled from physical exertion, something a cursed on should never feel. In unison, Fallen and Leon cried their frosty blue tears and listened as spirits hummed a hollow song of death to them.

Nassari’s spirit, however, hummed differently, it shined brightly from deep inside, a light of crystalline, pristine innocence rising slowly to the moon. An eerie song emitted from her soul, shrill and mournful.

“How do I love thee?: Nassari sang, beautiful pulsations of gold and silver pulsated from the supernatural orb. Leon could feel warmth and love from Nassari’s after image. He and Fallen reached forward with pale glassy hands encased with silent death that thrummed just below the surface to feel the human emotion that they had long lost, for always and eternity.

Then she was gone. Leon felt cold dread descend on him, cursed with death once more. Fallen’s shimmering blue eyes dulled to iron gray once more, emotion left as quickly as it came. They were back to nothing, in a limbo between life and death, and all they could feel was hate.

Leon glanced down at the beautiful woman in his arms.
“Why did you have to leave? I could have saved you,” he whispered, “why did you go?”
He remembered her last words, how do I love thee? He remembered the warmth of her hands when she hugged him, the cheeks that always remained rosy, and the fire in her eyes when she fought the Lychens. He now saw Nassari with wide, glazed, dull brown eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, but placed her rigidly cold corpse on the course bricks in the alley, clogged with Nassari’s life force.

Leon closed her eyes to relieve their empty staring, and distantly sensed the eyelashes tickle his palm.No morehe thought,no more


Nassari’s funeral took place on a breezy Halloween Night. Nexis stood at the foot of the grave, staring down at her. His black eyes nestled inside a pale porcelain mask of wrinkles that would never change. Leon impatiently stood next to Nexis, still as a statue and starting down at Nassari’s pale blue corpse, it seemed to crawl with life, though he knew it was just an illusion, and instead saw it as it was; encased in white gauze, and painted red rose lips no longer smiling. Fallen still wore clothes of battle, yet through her mask of defiance, she felt what was vaguely human loss, but never felt the full blow. The Willow trees surrounding them creaked and groaned with an age-oldness that surpassed all, as if to say “Get out of our forest, sacred magic forbids you”, but the company stayed, staring wide-eyed at their fallen comrade. Upon her gravestone, they simply wrote ‘no more and goodnight’. Leon tossed a sinister black rose to sleep with his Beloved. Then, in synchronized moves, they scraped and pushed the moist, gritty earth back in place, listening to the distant thunder growling in the east.

When tasks of ritual were complete, white roses nestled against the grave and looked shifty because of their innocence laughing in evils’ face. What Fallen, Nexis, and Leon did not know, was there were spirits listening throughout the Fairywood and laughed manically at their heartly confessions.

Nassari floated in limbo, losing part of her soul hurt, but not as bad as being abandoned by her Beloved in a forest of mist, fog, and olden Black Magic. She could feel the residue of pentagrams and sinister workings spindle their way through her, searing the rest of her soul, charring her very essence. There was one entity that was newer, Nassari sensed its smoking, fiery essence drifting on the spiritual planes nearby. She opened her ghostly eyes and still only saw darkness, she could feel her material body crushed within the black void. As the black magick entwined their essence within her soul, her mind could not function. She was dreaming, in a hypnosis induced by invisible drugs. She thought of murder and hallucinated of death and sinuous demons.

Unable to rise or fall, Nassari was stuck in purgatory; a limbo for souls who cannot leave earth for heaven or hell. She drifted for many days and many haunted nights, until, finally, sweet freedom was given. After so much time of being cooped up inside her rotting, zombie corpse, Nassari was enraged to the point of insanity. She wanted to spill the blood of angels and humans alike, yet in her ghastly mind, she didn’t know why; she didn’t care, didn’t need to care, all she knew was evil mixed with hate. The day that her freedom came, she felt the heavens open up and cry.

Nassari’s soul stayed sandwiched with great pressure, then she felt it ease, now she realized that she was six-feet-under and not in a spiraling void. She allowed her soul to drift upwards, released from her chains. Her soul burst from the slippery, almost liquifacted soil into the cynical fog, icy cold water cut her spirit; she was not disturbed.

“Where are you?” Nassari shouted weakly, her voice cracked in the wind, faltering with loss of love. For hours she sat, crying, shouting, and cursing her gods for taking her from her precious Leon. The winds swept oak branches through her soul and sent them crashing to the ground.

Suddenly, her bawls ceased! The gray, washed out, swirling sky calmed, the rain turned to a gentle mist, and the fog cleared. She had an enormous epiphany that almost sent her corporeal body careening to the earth. Nassari would seek revenge! She would haunt the people who forgot her! If they weren’t alive, she’d avenge that little problem with their descendants.

Nassari’s unsmiling face twisted into a gruesome smirk, showing blackened teeth and needle-sharp fangs. Her choppy, tinted brown hair grew in length and turned greasy black. Spikes punctured her back, causing her great pain, but the metamorphosis was net complete. Sharp, crimson talons forced themselves from her fingertips, her skin turned to a dead, ashy color, the maddened eyes she possessed turned violet, and her pupils dilated and stayed that way; great expanses hypnotizing all who dared to look. A fire crackled through her body, searing her lips a dull black, turning her white, gauzy gown to tatters. The halo about Nassari’s head turned into thorns.

While the fire devoured Nassari, her feathery, golden wings bent to match the shape of cats’ whiskers after being electrocuted. They thinned and hardened into leathery tufts with gaping holes on them.

While the fire devoured Nassari, her feathery, golden wings bent to match the shape of cats’ whiskers after being electrocuted. They thinned and hardened into leathery tufts with gaping holes on them.

“Leon, I’m coming my darling,” Nassari snarled in a light, breezy singsong voice. Her eyes twinkled in their sunken sockets. She sped through the sky, her leathery wings bent and pumped against the monotonous gray clouds.

Nassari darted behind chimneys, ignored the rain buffeting her body and flapped her rugged wings to find Leon. Hate has burned in her heart since the flowers upon her grave were charred by the evil presence in the forest the day she was buried and now it was released.

She reached her destination in Atlanta Georgia; a roomy mansion that loomed darkly over a manicured lawn in which stood a fountain with a statue of a phoenix in the topmost bowl.

“So, still running by the from the ashes we shall rise theme are we?” Nassari purred at no one in particular, her throaty rasp of a voice winding its sound about the grass, diluting the water in the fountain, and making the very magic-that she instilled!-within the phoenix statue quiver with fear. She smiled wickedly, black fangs inviting malicious deeds to crowd her. Nassari’s violet eyes widening even more, scanning the mansion, laughing at what she would do. Lightening crawled through the clouds, illuminating the facetious black columned house front, wrought iron fence, and fog streaked windows.

Nassari landed softly on the front porch, slick with rain. Her bare feet padded on the course concrete, yet made no sound. The door mat held the emblem of a phoenix, too, angering her to send a ball of flame shooting from her mouth, melting the rubber and leaving a foul, singing odor diffusing around her. She willed her pale hand to reach forward and push the seasoned oak wood door open. A whine of brown, rusty hinges echoed inside the cavernous foyer she knew so well. Her hand flicked the door closed with a loud, creaking thud.

Nassari observed the cold stone fireplace that would burn with blue fire in months to come, her eyes traveled to the imposing leather couches that Leon refused to let go. Then, at last, she slowly looked across the blood-red carpet-a sea of crimson promises, wreaking of death come to pass-and upon a huge, split staircase that matched the Titanic in size and beauty. This is where her feet carried her; this is what led her to Leon. Or so she thought. She could hear the breath of him coming from the inner chambers of the mansion, so she crept along the walls. Making no sound what so ever. Creeping, creeping, and creeping; singing to Leon, calling him out. Nassari chased the sound of his breathing, which frustrated her, because it was near everywhere she went, but she could never find it. Always so near, yet so far away. So, all she did was creep, creep, and creep.